


You Go, Girl

by asuralucier



Category: Gone Girl (2014)
Genre: Character Study, First Person Narrative, Gen, Post-Canon, Sibling Relationship, Slice of Life, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: But I’m not a writer. And this is not a story, so there. It’s my goddamn life.Margo moves on (or tries to).





	You Go, Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GotTheSilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GotTheSilver/gifts).

> Thanks to my beta, ictus!

Not two months after Amy’s ordeal (she called it that, like it was some sort of trial-by-fire baptism thing), she insisted on hiring a decorator to redo The Bar. Overhaul it, give it a fresh look, so that it looks less dead on its feet.

“It’ll be good for us, Margo. All of us. It’ll be like starting over.”

Amy tells me all this sipping tonic from a straw with just a little ice. I had to pour her drink twice: first time, Amy complains about the glass being dirty, a smudge on its rim. Did I want to be responsible for the baby’s first germs? No, she didn’t think so. Thank you very much.

Amy is proud of the fact that she is showing. She’s about seven months pregnant, her belly protruding with the promise of a little Dunne (she says). She looks flawless, perfect like a piece of glossed New York advertisement. Amy says it’s her skin, mostly, and offers to get me started with a care routine. Word is that she drives into St. Louis to shop for her maternity clothes. I’ve never seen her wear the same thing twice.

St. Louis is about a three hours’ drive from North Carthage. She always makes a thing of it, stays the weekends. Where, who knows? Nick doesn’t. I admire his capacity for ignoring the elephant in the room. At this point, he probably won’t even notice if a petting zoo moves into his front room.

As for me, I’m getting there. Maybe.

* * *

“At least she doesn’t get cravings,” Nick says. He’s this close to drunk with his socked feet slung over the edge of my sofa. “I don’t have to find pickles stuck in the peanut butter or anything. It’d really ruin my breakfast.”

This is Nick. Nick, my brother, who prefers to look on the bright side. The bright side is that being married to a crazy bitch means that she doesn’t ruin his breakfast. Amy still ruins my stomach, but in a metaphorical way that Nick hates and would say is a piece of lazy writing.

But I’m not a writer. And this is not a story, so there. It’s my goddamn life. Amy makes me fucking sick.

I go and check my fridge and grab two more cans of beer. It’s the last two; after this, it’s onto the hard stuff. Normally, I’d be at the Bar, pulling pints of Bud. Business is better, better than it’s ever been. I get to know people, I’m not unfriendly, and besides, I grew up here.

Except now there is no business. The Bar’s under renovation until the end of the summer. The money is Amy’s; I don’t want to know how she got it.

Nick drinks his beer. “The baby will be here by fall.” I’d say he reads my mind sometimes, but we’re twins. It’s the most natural thing in an unnatural world, but maybe it doesn’t make me feel safe any longer, the way it used to.

“Dad said,” I start, cracking open my own beer. “That Mom used to get awful cravings when she was pregnant with us.”

“I wasn’t under the impression that Dad says anything.”

“Really, Nick?”

Nick looks immediately sorry. “Sorry Go, I just. That came out wrong.” More beer. Then he says,“Tell me what Dad said.”

Nick’s never wanted to know, what Dad or Mom said. But while he was in New York, he’d had an excuse. The excuse of being busy. The excuse of being famous (kind of). Culture writers aren’t really famous, but your ideas are. Novelists are one up from even that, your _imagination_ is famous; people like the way you tick.

Nick has always liked it when people like him. It matters less to me; I had less of a choice.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah,” Nick nods emphatically. “I really want to know.”

“Right so -” I go to the edge of the couch and nudge at his foot. “Scoot.”

He does, and I sit. Nick shifts, both to make enough room for me and to stretch his arm across my neck along the back of the couch, but we don’t touch. “Dad said that Mom used to get cravings for the most random things. Condensed milk in a can; Dad made a mean key-lime pie back in the old days. Oh, and olives.”

“Olives. What kind of olives?” Nick tilts his head towards me. His gaze is so honest and boyish, it makes me laugh. The sound bursts out of me and after a moment, he laughs too. He looks ten years younger when he laughs. Ever since Amy’s ordeal, ever since the media circus took him to task about his shit-eating grin, he’d sidled back into smiling with half of his face. I tell him it looks like he’d had a stroke and that just makes him lose his shit again.

I surprise myself. I don’t remember the last time I’d laughed. I’d laughed at Nick when he’d told me that he was staying married; I’d laughed when he’d told me he’d lost his job; I’d laughed when the nurse said Dad had proper Alzheimers, when Mom went from Stage Three to Four.

I am an inappropriate laugher. No idea why. I used to think I got it from Mom. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s just how I deal with things.

“Fuck if I remember what kind of olives,” I say, taking a long swig from my beer. “Let me think.”


End file.
